ANOTHER week and another football club being targeted by overseas' investors in the so-called "English" Premier League.

Claude Puel's Southampton are on the brink of being bought out by Foreign investors

This time it's Southampton who are believed to be on the brink of bought by the Lander Sports Development group, taking the club out of Swiss ownership and placing it in the hands of the Chinese.

Such is the extent of the foreign invasion in the English top flight that the move has rarely raised a flicker of surprise.

There will, of course, be some nervousness at Southampton that the legacy handed to the club by the Liebherr family may be squandered but the reluctance to put clubs, many with well over 100 years of heritage and tradition behind them, in overseas hands has long since passed.

A staggering 15 clubs in the Premier League are now either owned or part-owned by overseas investors with only Burnley, Middlesbrough, Stoke, Spurs and West Ham now in British hands.

Premier League owners' rich list

Fri, April 14, 2017

Click through the gallery to see the estimated personal worth of every Premier League team's major shareholder

Click to reveal the estimated worth of Premier League teams' major shareholders

A decade ago that number was nine and before Roman Abramovich arrived with his roubles in 2003, it was zero.

It's a remarkable transformation in the make-up of ownership and while some fans are undoubtedly happy with the arrangement - most notably those of a Manchester City and Chelsea persuasion - others are growing increasingly uneasy at the apparent erosion of the national game.

That fear is magnified by figures released by UEFA in January, which suggest that 69.2% of players in the Premier League are foreigners.

That same study found that over half the players in the Championship were also from overseas.

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Roman Abramovich started the foreign takeover of clubs in 2003 when he bought Chelsea

That trend on the pitch in the Championship is reflected by the ownership story off it too. Foreign owners enjoy control of 11 out of 24 second-tier clubs, including Aston Villa, Leeds United, Nottingham Forest and Wolves - four of English football's most historic football institutions.

The days when clubs were owned by local businessmen made good, it seems, are long gone.

"There are two arguments as to why this is happening," says Rob Wilson, football finance expert at Sheffield Hallam University. "One is that these clubs are vastly more expensive than they used to be and, as a result, far fewer potential British investors can afford them.

"The second is that the impact of television exposure means the net has been widened more than anyone could have imagined. There's also definitely money to be made by buying football clubs as a result of the recent TV deals.

"A number of these owners now, though, are what we call them trophy asset hunters. Abramovich was one when he took over at Chelsea - he wanted to hold that Champions League trophy above his head and say to the rest of the world that he had built this club, which is effectively what he was able to do."

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Sheikh Mansour has pumped a lot of money into Manchester City since taking over

The last Premier League champions under English ownership were Arsenal in 2003/04 in the days before the main stakeholders in the club were from the USA and Uzbekistan.

Few could argue that Abramovich - who has long since stopped handing Chelsea managers blank cheques - and Sheikh Mansour at Manchester City have put as much in as they are getting out.

"In many ways the ownership at Manchester City has reflected what a traditional British business man would have done - they've played a big role in regenerating an area and have tried to create a community-centred club," says Wilson.

Others haven't been so lucky. Ask any Portsmouth fan to give their views on foreign ownership and you'll get a very different answer to that given by City fan revelling in a golden era.

Ironic then that Portsmouth Supporters' Trust this week opened discussions with the former CEO of Walt Disney, Michael Eisner, over a possible takeover!